ACANTHOPTERYGII. 315 



teeth. Many foreign species, however, have behind the ca- 

 nines numerous little granular teeth ; but the species of the 

 Mediterranean, to which the name of Pagrus is attached, 

 have these teeth still finer. The first thus connect this genus 

 to the chrysophrys, and the last conducts to the pagellus ; but 

 that which, besides the strong anterior teeth, distinguishes 

 the pagri from the pagelli, is having the body more squat, and 

 the same number of rays as chrysophrys : the ranks of their 

 molars being reduced to two, their jaws are not enlarged and 

 their muzzle is less thick than that of the chrysophrys, with 

 which they have otherwise very great resemblance. 



The common pagrus (P. vulgaris) appears to be chiefly con- 

 fined to the Mediterranean. Like so many other fish, it has 

 given rise to various errors in nomenclature and representa- 

 tion. The different denominations which it has received on 

 the coasts of Italy, Sicily, and Greece, all seem referrible to 

 the pager or pagur of the ancient Romans, and the words of 

 Ovid, rutilus pagur, do not seem to belie this etymology. 

 Aristotle speaks of the <j>aypog as a pelagic fish, and one that 

 has stones in the head. All the ancients attributed to it a firm 

 flesh and the habit of feeding upon shell-fish. Thus there 

 appears no reason to suppose that their pagrus is not the 

 same as the modern. But it must not be confounded, as it 

 has been by many, with the <j>ayp(vpioQ, which was a fish of 

 the Nile, sacred with the inhabitants of Syene, and which 

 gave its name to the town <j)ayp(t)ptoiro\ig. 



We have no proof that the pagrus exists in the channel or 

 in the more northern seas. Pennant, it is true, mentions it in 

 the second edition of his British Zoology, but it is the cen- 

 trodontus which he appears to have had in view. 



Under the name of Pagellus certain sparoi'des are as- 

 sembled, with rounded molars, whose anterior teeth are all 

 more or less fine, like carders, and not strong and conical like 

 those of pagrus and chrysophrys. Their molars are smaller 



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